Child abuse claims reported against 45 priests over 11 years

A total of 84 allegations of child abuse, involving forty-five Maltese priests, were reported to a Church response team over the last 11 years.

The response team was set up in 1999 and receives reports from both the Maltese and Gozitan dioceses, a spokesman for the Curia said in response to questions put to it by The Times.

He would not divulge the nature of the cases, saying the response team's work was carried out in confidence.

Asked what action the dioceses had taken in these cases, the spokesman said disciplinary action is always taken by the bishops or major superiors of religious orders when allegations are proven.

The spokesman did not say how many of the priests investigated had been found guilty or whether any priest had been dismissed or banned from celebrating Mass and hearing confession. However, he said the judge presiding over the response team informs the alleged victims of their right to follow their case civilly. "The response team has investigated each report brought to its attention. This team interrogates the alleged victims and perpetrators and witnesses that could shed light."

The only cases in which proceedings could not be followed were those in which the persons who lodged the report did not substantiate their claims to the response team, the spokesman said.

The news comes as a sex abuse scandal rocked the Catholic Church, amid claims and admissions that senior clerics hid cases of child abuse over the years. Pope Benedict XVI is now being targeted because his deputy had stopped a Church trial against an American priest accused of abusing around 200 deaf boys in the 1950s and 1960s. At the time, Cardinal Ratzinger was a senior Vatican figure. The Vatican has strenuously denied any cover-up in this case.

Speaking at a press conference related to the Pope's visit yesterday, pastoral secretary Mgr Charles Cordina said this was "a moment of great suffering" for the Church and "all the necessary steps" were being taken to ensure this would not happen again.

One case surfaced in Malta in 2003 when the police started to investigate allegations of child abuse by four priests at St Joseph's Institute in Santa Venera. One of the alleged victims, Lawrence Grech, had claimed he was abused by at least two priests.

Yesterday, the Curia spokesman did not say whether any of the local cases were reported to the Vatican: "According to the norms of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith of the Holy See, every diocese is obliged to report to this Congregation those cases where there exists the possibility that the allegations made are true".

The spokesman said the local Church follows these norms and reports accordingly.

Asked whether the Maltese dioceses could say with certainty that they did not know of any priest accused of any form of child abuse who was currently working with children, the spokesman said: "The dioceses can ensure every alleged case that is brought forward to the response team is investigated to ensure any case of abuse is stopped by removing the perpetrator from pastoral ministry related to the nature of the abuse".

The spokesman said the local Church's policy document, published in 1999, clearly stated that it was mandatory for all institutions to report all cases of child sexual abuse to the team's judge.

Last year Archbishop Paul Cremona set up a second response team so that one would focus on adult cases while the other on cases of minors. This was also meant to send the message that the Church was taking allegations of child abuse seriously.

In a recent interview with an Italian newspaper, Maltese priest Mgr Charles Scicluna, the Promoter of Justice at the Congregation, said that between 2001 and 2010 the Congregation looked into allegations revolving around 3,000 cases committed in the last 50 years, around 10 per cent were allegations of paedophilia.

Another 60 per cent of these cases dealt with acts of sexual attraction towards adolescents of the same sex while 30 per cent dealt with heterosexual acts.

However, only 20 per cent of the 3,000 accused priests were given full Church tribunals, and only some were defrocked.